INDECISIVE MOMENT was founded by artists Hyla Skopitz and Teresa Christiansen in 2009 with the intention of bringing video art to the public eye.

Teresa and Hyla received their MFAs in Advanced Photographic Studies from ICP-Bard in May, 2008. Though trained as photographers, they both quickly began to incorporate video into their practice, as did many of their peers. As they both developed a serious interest in the medium of video, they decided to create a forum within which to dedicate to showing video, in perhaps unconventional means, on their own terms.

The name Indecisive Moment began as the title of the first screening organized in August 2009. The artists included were all photographers who also made video work. The screening sought to initiate a conversation; why does it seem to have become exceedingly difficult for artists to undertake a viable photographic practice unless making work which is in line with a more traditional photography or working in a manner that directly references past photographic masters? Why do many photographers see so much potential in video?

Henri Cartier-Bresson, considered the father of photojournalism and street photography, published his book The Decisive Moment in 1952. Originally a painter, he turned to photography after realizing the unique potential of the medium to freeze a moment. The decisive moment is the fraction of a second in which visual elements come together to express the essence of the event which is unfolding in front of the photographer’s lens and his or her abilitly to recognize its significance with a click of the shutter in that instant.